


but they're back again, just like a long-lost friend

by philthestone



Series: and there's a keepsake my mother gave me [6]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Post Infinity War, the rest of the squad is also there it's a lil family party, this is .... very silly and fluffy and wholesome just bare with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 13:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14426607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: “You’re so far away,” she says, with a whine to her voice that she’d deny with a vehemence come morning. Peter giggles, but she’s serious, tips of her fingers buzzing with warmth and giddiness and the feeling of finally being okay. Because that’s it, isn’t it; that’sit. She rolls over and pulls at his shoulders, strong enough even now to get a proper hold under his armpits and half-haul him into the bed. Peter, long legs still hanging off the edge of the bed, leans in comically, a very slow tipping of his torso. He’s a bit dazed.“Wish you knew how much I lov’d you, G’mora,” he says, very seriously, as he finally gets close enough for their noses to almost touch.“I do know,” Gamora tells him, holding his gaze, equally serious. “We’re married.”





	but they're back again, just like a long-lost friend

**Author's Note:**

> i’m just riding on the hope that infinity war wont destroy me so im writing silly fluff and happy endings. anyways you know how when you’re a kid your parents will invite family friends over to stay from out of town & everyone stays awake until past midnight downstairs catching up and you don’t have to go to bed your usual bedtime? i like to imagine that the guardians and thor & co have that kind of relationship. occasionally one or the other family will just like. be those family friends from out of town. fic takes place maybe ... a year or so after infinity war? idk. a time of healing and happiness 
> 
> disclaimers: i dont know a lot about drunk ppl so forgive inaccuracies and the title is from the carpenters’ “yesterday once more”.
> 
> reviews are soft happy endings

The secret to a good party trick, Peter once told her, is the ability to keep your audience captivated with an equal balance of expectation and anticipation. The knowledge that you  _ can _ achieve an entertaining or awe-inspiring display, coupled with a healthy uncertainty that allows you to maintain the element of surprise, gives you an uncannily powerful sway over a room full of people.

Even when all five of those people are three sheets to the wind, all or most eyes will be delightedly trained on you.

“Fifty units says she can’t hit the hilt of the last knife!”

“A hundred says she can!”

Gamora sways very slightly where she stands, concentrating, not quite inebriated enough to lose her balance even perched six feet in the air. Someone has turned on the  _ Quadrant’s _ speakers and is playing a song she’s not familiar with, its beat reverberating against the cluttered walls of the ship’s belly. Under the no-doubt grimy soles of her booted feet, Peter’s shoulders shift. He’s drunker than she, even having stayed dutifully away from the Asgardian liquor that Brunnhilde had tossed her way with a wink, but still shockingly steady on his legs.

Shocking to others, Gamora thinks;  _ she’s _ wholly confident in his ability to keep them both upright and shuffle out a few dance moves to boot, even when she can feel him teeter a little under her. 

As she said: an equal balance of expectation and anticipation. Their arsenal of party tricks is not actually that many.

“Two hundred says Rocket’s scammin’ you!” yells Brunnhilde, perched high on a cabinet somewhere to the right, her legs dangling close enough to Thor’s head that she could swing them out and kick him if she wanted. Her voice rings out at the very last second, overloud even in the midst of the proverbial Terran peanut gallery. 

Gamora throws the knife. A beautiful arc, flashy enough to have the crowded room hush for just a moment. 

The other hilt, which she vaguely remembers to be made of steel, splinters.

Peter’s celebratory hollering plays background to Gamora swinging her hands up into the air and letting out an inelegant yell of triumph, limbs fluid and loosened by the alcohol. She pauses to spit some of her undone hair out of her mouth -- her upper half sways again, almost dangerously, but Peter’s large hands are steady where they hold her knees. She can feel him yelling indiscriminately below her, overexcited for a feat he’s seen a hundred times before and was fully aware was going to happen. Alcohol always triples his natural exuberance, Gamora knows, stubbornly present even after all the years of hardship left in their wake. He’s celebrating as though he wasn’t fully aware that she was going to hit the target, and it’s a familiar pride in  _ Gamora the person _ that even with her senses half-dulled she picks up on. Or maybe it’s because her senses are half-dulled that she focuses on it a bit too much, sharp enough in Gamora’s admittedly still clear scope of the room that it fills her lungs for her. 

It’s enough that she whoops again, foolishly excited, under the dimmed lights of the old room they’ve long since taken over. Peter’s delighted, responding laugh is precious to her ringing ears. It fills her limbs with a liquid warmth and she doesn’t really think as she lets herself fold and drop down, far too trusting of Peter’s ability to catch her.

He does catch her -- party trick, after all -- and their assorted crowd of five people and a half is still swelling with yells of delight and shock.

Someone calls for more drinks and the yelling is renewed, heavy with alcohol as they argue scattered bets placed on the accuracy of Gamora’s throws. The knowledge that she managed to surprise their friends with something so frivolous makes the warmth in Gamora’s limbs spread; childish, maybe, her not-so-secret delight at garnering positive attention for such a trivial achievement, but Gamora is perhaps too imbibed to really care. She grins, not entirely unused to the heat under her skin that her body mods are no longer regulating, breathless with the thrill of showing off. Vibrations in the tips of her fingers that feel muted but undeniably present, highlighted by the knowledge that they are in a safe space, a good space. She trusts the people around her.

None so much as the person she’s leaning against, though. She can feel Peter’s muscles shift as he stumbles very slightly with their combined weight, tilting almost far enough to fall over before he rights himself and pulls her upwards against him anyway.

This near-fall is, unexpectedly, a lot more amusing to Gamora than it would have been some other time. She smothers the giggles pushing at her lips, mostly unsuccessfully, and dismisses the idea that the last pull of the bottle she took before throwing her final life has caught up to her. Looking up, she sees that Peter is grinning at her laughter.

Gamora runs her hand along his sleeved arm, because she can.

“Told you I could do it,” she says, not immediately registering the low, coy lilt to her own voice, but leaning into it nonetheless. She always loves the result, either way.

“Uh huh,” says Peter, but he seems to be distracted, bright eyes tracing her face with an intensity that means her voice had the unconsciously desired effect. There’s a flush dancing high on his cheeks. He’s very close, and a little sweaty, and the chaos of the room is warm and liquid like the heat in Gamora’s bones. She thinks she might have drank gold, she’s not sure. Regardless, it’s all too easy to reach around her husband’s waist and liberate the knife still tucked away under the strap of his belt.

And then start giggling again. Peter starts giggling too; it’s all very funny.

The knife probably used to be one of hers. Gamora can’t remember, right now, and it’s far too much fun to hold it up and dangle it in front of his face, her grin growing along with her inconsistent giggling, when his eyes widen and his grin ticks upwards, becoming unscrupulous.

“You should --  _ mmph _ .” His kiss is hot and definitely sloppy -- an inevitability -- but Gamora doesn’t mind and plows forward with her deliberate line of thought the minute her lips are freed, still swaying a bit off-beat with the music -- “should be more careful with -- whose hands are on you.” She feels herself fall forward again, drawn in by the recent taste of Peter’s crooked grin, “ _ Starlord _ .”

“Baby,” Peter mumbles against her mouth, and he’s definitely drunk, definitely a little far gone, “you could beat the shit outta me and I love you for it.” 

She’s sure that were they both a bit more sober he’d be intent on continuing the kiss, but as it is he just hums and presses his face against her ear, close enough that she can feel the curve of his lopsided grin, so Gamora doesn’t feel too bad about pulling away. She’s riding high on her own sense of triumph at nothing in particular and the concept of trust and the feel of Peter’s hands splayed across her waist. She’s half unsure why they’re standing so close and so intimate and so silly because there are  _ people _ around, but they’re good people, she remembers, friends that they invited into their home.

She steps away. It’s a lingering step, the kind that holds a sort of teasing promise, their free fingers tangling once before she pushes Peter back a bit, laughter still sporadic and giggly. She waves the knife again, once, and retreats slowly, languidly, with the same grin, watching him laugh and feeling his eyes on her as she goes to join in the party again.

It’s easy to float, easier than it has been before. She can’t remember the last time they did this --  _ the weeks After _ , she thinks, and it was far more desperate than this, and she drank nothing but cheap Terran vodka that had little to no lasting effects -- but it’s nice, to be able to. A small party, a small group. People she knows and trusts, with whom she has fought side by side. She’s done it before, though perhaps the group was smaller that time, family only, a riotous game night where Groot and Drax teamed up against the rest of them to Rocket’s outrage and Gamora found herself having far too much fun playing an unscrupulous card game from her position in Peter’s lap.

But she floats -- not quite gone enough to lose her balance or sharpness, but loose, fluid, silly in a way that she’s become okay with. Brunnhilde has challenged Drax to an arm wrestle to the sounds of Groot’s creaking cheers, the teenager’s bedtime far passed and the winner of the competition unclear; across the room, Rocket is bickering with Thor’s sly younger brother, uncharacteristically loyal as he insists Peter’s skill in sleight of hand is superior; she locates Thor himself, leaning against a once-upright couch that must have been upturned to free up space, and they talk and laugh companionably, pass back and forth a newer, darker bottle. She nearly misses the giggly kiss that Mantis presses to Nebula’s cheek, right there in the middle of the room.

She finds Peter again an hour or so later, and he’s still upright, though definitely nearing his limit. He presses himself into her side almost immediately, body molding to fit hers in a half-done attempt at some kind of impromptu slow dance. The music’s not right for it -- she’s long since given up trying to identify the songs playing -- but Gamora hums and lets herself be swayed, breathes in the familiar smells of their ship and that pink stuff Peter was drinking earlier and the rapidly fading scent of his cologne.

She’s not sure how she pulls him out of the room -- can’t quite remember her own steps, if she were asked to trace them back, nor her motivation -- but the night seems to be going by in snapshots, in muted, colourful moments. They’re laughing when they key in the code to their room, Peter’s hands already straying with no particular direction or purpose in mind. He’s long lost any sense of coordination, and when Gamora’s foot catches in a shirt on the floor and she stumbles backwards and falls onto the furs covering their bed, Peter face-plants into the ground. She’s lying on her back, not particularly inclined to move despite the knowledge that the ground must be uncomfortable for him, when he emerges, resting his cheek against the edge of the bed and with his curly hair delightfully in disarray.

Gamora tilts her head against the mattress to get a better look at him.

“You’re so far away,” she says, with a whine to her voice that she’d deny with a vehemence come morning. Peter giggles, but she’s serious, tips of her fingers buzzing with warmth and giddiness and the feeling of finally being okay. Because that’s it, isn’t it; that’s  _ it _ . She rolls over and pulls at his shoulders, strong enough even now to get a proper hold under his armpits and half-haul him into the bed. Peter, long legs still hanging off the edge of the bed, leans in comically, a very slow tipping of his torso. He’s a bit dazed.

“Wish you knew how much I lov’d you, G’mora,” he says, very seriously, as he finally gets close enough for their noses to almost touch.

“I do know,” Gamora tells him, holding his gaze, equally serious. “We’re married.”

“I kn-- _ no _ . I mean --” He grins, a little bit full of awe. Or at least, she thinks it’s awe. It’s so close to her face that she’s almost overwhelmed, almost feels her throat close up with emotion. But she’s too drunk for it to properly register, and Peter frees one of his hands from under him to touch her cheek with his outstretched fingers; the movement upends his balance, and he slumps forward, cheek pressing against her neck, breaking eye contact. “You’re so amazing. ‘N pretty. ‘M’happy you nnn -- y’know.”

“Yeah,” she says, letting herself sink backwards into the mattress, his comfortable weight draping over her. It’s still hard to process, a little bit, even after all this time. But he’s so earnest about it and she wants him to know that  _ he’s  _ amazing and pretty too, she thinks that every day, even when he’s annoying her and especially when she’s drunk on Asgardian mead and finally, finally free to  _ live _ .

“Than’s babe,” he says, when she voices this aloud. “We should toat’ly make out.”

“Mmm,” says Gamora, her eyes already fluttering closed, lulled by the steady  _ thump _ of Peter’s heart against her diaphragm. She can feel the metal dig into her skin, where the washer pendant of his necklace lies against her collarbone, nearly overlapping her own.

“‘S’okay,” she hears him say, moments before she falls asleep. “We got all th’time in th’worl’, now.”


End file.
